Conversational AI in Recruitment - Harnessing the Power

Recruiting teams rightly see AI technology as a game-changer. Intelligent hiring platforms build efficiencies for teams to do more with less, even in times of talent scarcity and skills gaps. AI-driven technology can also help companies improve the candidate experience, attract the best applicants, and even protect the brand and business. An AI hiring platform’s superpower is to provide rich, human-like interactions with users, and the future of that potential comes from conversational AI in recruiting.

This technological breakthrough is critical to a talent acquisition (TA) landscape in crisis. Today, more than 50% of companies are dissatisfied with their TA strategies, and 62% see potential profitability gains by improving them. Conversational AI provides a promising path toward that goal.

In this post, we introduce conversational AI platforms as a transformative force in recruiting across the following topic areas:

What is conversational AI?

Conversational AI is built to simulate the experience of talking with a human. It uses natural language processing (NLP) to understand human language and then respond to human queries using language based on generative AI (Gen AI). Unlike chatbots based on older AI technologies that are limited to responding based on existing rules, conversational AI has the power to make unique responses to novel situations.

How does conversational AI revolutionize recruitment?

Improving the quality of candidate engagement is central to the value of conversational AI in recruiting. Conversational AI can improve outcomes across core functions—such as directing people to jobs, answering FAQs, screening candidates, scheduling interviews, etc.—through human-like interactions 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

Large language models make personalized candidate experiences possible by understanding the context of conversations, such as why a user has asked a question. They improve the system’s automated answers by producing custom responses on the spot, rather than simply choosing among pre-written ones.

What’s more, a conversational AI can deepen engagement by understanding the candidate’s entire hiring journey, from initial contact through offers and onboarding. That continuity can extend through conversations across multiple channels such as career websites, SMS, and WhatsApp, providing a sophisticated user experience. A conversational AI platform dramatically improves shared workflows between recruiting teams and candidates, from getting job postings in front of the right candidates to giving them interview advice, all automatically.

Six benefits of conversational AI in recruiting

With potentially unlimited improvements across the recruiting process, it can be challenging to cut through the hype and establish specific goals for conversational AI. Future advancements will improve on current benefits and introduce new ones, but recruiting teams have access to a solid, well-defined set of advantages today.

1. Multiply resources for recruiting teams

Conversational AI makes it possible for recruiting teams to individualize candidate engagements, even in the face of very large applicant volumes. With AI assistance, each team member can do more in the course of the workday, screening more applicants per position and ultimately accelerating the time to hire.

2. Improve the quality of applicant pools

Giving potential applicants AI-powered tools to answer their questions about a position provides better matches between postings and candidates. The conversational AI platform’s individualized job information also helps automate and streamline candidate pre-qualification for hiring teams.

3. Enhance the candidate’s experience

By personalizing candidate interactions, conversational AI platforms can provide a more positive recruiting experience, with 24/7/365 availability. An AI that’s programmed to be polite and kind acknowledges the value of applicants’ time and effort, providing a foundation for mutual respect and positive employee relationships.

4. Reduce friction for recruiters and hiring managers

The natural, flexible interaction between a recruiting team member and a platform with embedded conversational AIimproves the platform’s ease of use. Intuitively communicating with the platform using natural language encourages recruiters and hiring managers to pursue creative solutions to their hiring challenges instead of getting overwhelmed with manual tasks.

5. Streamline interview scheduling

Coordinating the schedules of hiring teams and candidates to schedule interviews is traditionally resource-intensive and manual. Conversational AI helps automate the process by parsing information from various communication channels and using it to coordinate scheduling among all parties.

6. Lower costs, now and later

Conversational AI builds efficiencies across the hiring process that directly reduce the associated immediate operating expense. At the same time, using the technology to improve the quality of hires can help avoid expensive missteps and protect the business over the long term.

Four considerations for conversational AI recruiting platforms

While conversational AI in recruiting has revolutionary potential, its implementation must fit with existing real-world needs. Potentially complex considerations include regulatory, business, and technical requirements.

1. Observe data privacy and security best practices

Sensitive data used to train conversational AI must be protected, to guard privacy and comply with regulatory requirements. To support privacy mandates, including GDPR, SmartRecruiters masks all personally identifiable information (PII) while training its AI models, so no PII is ever exposed, even if it is present in conversations.

2. Avoid bias in automated hiring pipelines

Government mandates in some jurisdictions require that conversational AI platforms must not base hiring decisions on irrelevant characteristics such as race and gender. SmartRecruiters’ conversational AI is built to be compliant by design, passes an annual bias audit as required by New York City Law 144, and supports the developing EU AI Act.

For more on SmartRecruiters’ approach to privacy, security, and bias prevention, read our AI whitepaper.

3. Ensure the AI is fully integrated with applicant tracking

Conversational AI can transform the entire recruiting process. To do so, it must be baked deeply into hiring toolsets including the applicant tracking system (ATS)—not just bolted on. SmartRecruiters conversational AI is foundational to its hiring software, reducing recruiter workloads and personalizing candidate relationships at scale.

4. Customize the platform to your brand and voice

Tailoring hiring platforms with a custom look and feel helps foster engagement between hiring teams and candidates. Customization of the SmartRecruiters Hiring Platform interface is part of every implementation, and the conversational AI is tailored to support the precise branding and voice of the hiring organization.

Embracing the future of AI in recruitment

The SmartRecruiters recruitment platform reinvents recruiting technology on a foundation of conversational AI. The platform’s heart and soul is Winston, the charismatic and capable AI companion behind an end-to-end AI-driven experience, deeply embedded in the core ATS workflow.

Winston anticipates your hiring needs and works on solutions before they are even on your radar. He automates manual tasks so recruiters can focus on matching jobs to great candidates. And he even adds a touch of joy and personality to the hiring journey. Teaming up with Winston can unlock return on investment and productivity gains across the recruiting process, with outstanding business benefits: